Editor's Note New research presented October 12 at UEG [United European Gastroenterology] Week Virtual 2020 shows that delays in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening caused by COVID-19 has resulted in significantly increased mortality rates. Researchers at the University of Bologna, Italy, developed a model to forecast the impact of delayed CRC…

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Editor's Note Leandro Pecchia, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, has been awarded £13 million (nearly $17 million) for the ODIN project. The project will explore the use of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) to ease pressures on hospitals during recovery from COVID-19…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK, find that intubation and extubation of patients during general anesthesia may produce only a fraction of the aerosols previously thought, much less than that produced during a regular cough. The researchers conducted real-time, high-resolution environmental monitoring…

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Editor's Note Preliminary findings in Moderna’s (Cambridge, Massachusetts) COVID-19 trial show the vaccine elicits strong immune system responses in older adults similar to responses in younger recipients, and adverse events associated with the vaccine are mainly mild or moderate. In its expansion to include older adults, the trial enrolled 40…

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Editor's Note This study presented September 24 at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Conference on Coronavirus Disease finds that the initial SARS-CoV-2 viral load (VL) in nasopharyngeal samples has been decreasing as the pandemic progresses. The researchers from Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center, Detroit, Michigan, also…

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Editor's Note In this study from Germany, researchers found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly susceptible to irradiation with ultraviolet (UV) light. High viral loads (5x106TCID50/mL) were inactivated in 9 minutes with UVC (254 nm) irradiation. The UVC dose required for complete inactivation was 1,048 mJ/cm2. Exposure to UVA (365…

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Editor's Note ECRI on September 22 released an analysis showing that 60% to 70% of N95 masks from China do not meet US standards for filtration and effectiveness. ECRI tested nearly 200 masks, reflecting 15 different manufacturer models, which have been purchased by large US healthcare systems. ECRI recommends not…

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Editor's Note This controlled, in-vitro study investigates the minimum contact time for povidone-iodine nasal antiseptic to inactivate the SARS-CoV-2 virus. All laboratory work was conducted in biosafety level 3 laboratories at the Institute for Antiviral Research at Utah State University, Logan. Povidone-iodine was tested at diluted concentrations of 0.5%, 1.25%,…

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Editor's Note In this study, researchers from India’s Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Israel’s Technion-IIT discover how to recharge used N95 masks after decontamination to recover their 95% efficiency. Also included is a proof-of-concept construction of a battery-operated smart mask. N95 masks are 95% efficient at filtering out 0.3…

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Editor's Note This cohort study of US children with COVID-19 or seasonal flu found no difference in hospitalization rates, ICU admission rates, or mechanical ventilator use between the two groups. More COVID-19 patients reported clinical symptoms at the time of diagnosis. The study included 315 children with COVID-19 (median age…

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